


la cortigiana onesta

by ash818



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Escort Service, F/M, Long Happy Life Together, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 02:10:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2411105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ash818/pseuds/ash818
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As an escort, she's taken her share of couples calls, but the Queens are something different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	la cortigiana onesta

At 10:32, I receive the text message: two minute warning.

I gather up the bundle, slip into the absurdly spacious bathroom, and check my makeup at the marble counter. My lipstick is too heavy, so I blot it on a square of Kleenex.

The door of the hotel suite creaks open, and I hear laughter and the ungainly footfalls of two people. Then messy kisses and the soft pants in between. Shoes clunk onto the floor.

"Where is my surprise?" Oliver Queen says, muffled against his wife’s mouth. "You said" kiss "it was here" kiss "waiting. Where is it?"

I hear the drag of a chair across the carpet. “I need you to take your hand out of my dress and sit down.”

"No," he says cheerfully, and there are more wet noises.

"Honey. Sweetheart. Darling. Sit right here and close your eyes. It is vitally important that you keep them closed. I cannot stress this enough."

Light feet whisper across the carpet, and the bathroom door opens just wide enough for Felicity to slip inside.

When she sees me, she breaks into a huge smile. Then she reaches for my hands, and she does a little dance as if we are sixth graders and she’s just come out of a closet after playing seven minutes in heaven with the cutest boy in class. She’d be squealing if it wouldn’t give us away.

I can’t help smiling along with her.

I reach for the bundle, and I help her on with the beautiful lacy lingerie set, tightening straps and adjusting bands. I raise my eyebrows at her. Ready?

She nods. “Are your eyes closed?” she calls to her husband.

"Yes."

Felicity flips all of the lights off. “Keep them that way.”

We slip out together, timing our footsteps to coincide perfectly. When we planned this on my living room sofa last week, she said, “We’ll have to stick close and put our feet down at the exact same time. Otherwise he’ll hear two people, and there goes the surprise.” I tried not to widen my eyes at that bit of strangeness, but she explained anyway. “Some of his instincts from his time on the island are still with him.”

Like everyone else with access to mass media, I knew he had survived five years in the wilderness. It had not occurred to me that something of the wilderness survived in him too.

In the near-blackness of this five-star hotel room, all I can make out is his perfect posture and the rustle of his dress shirt as he loosens his tie. He lets out a happy hum when I slide into his lap, and his arms wind around me to pull me greedily into a kiss.

I feel it, the moment he realizes. He grabs my upper arms and holds me away from him. “Felicity?”

She turns on the soft yellow lamp.

He’s looking up at me, and despite all the googling I did before I took this appointment, I am not prepared for his blue eyes. I am also not prepared for the purposeful way he looks at me, as if he’s taking a snapshot, before his head turns in search of her.

"Oliver," she says in his ear, hands sliding over his shoulders and down his chest. "This is Lena."

He moves as decisively as he looks. Pulls her around to his side, arm around her hips. That’s quite a poker face he’s got, glancing between us. “I remember what we talked about,” he says slowly, “but I didn’t think you would actually…”

Felicity and I exchange smiles, and she is so obviously proud and so obviously on the verge of giggles that I struggle not to laugh myself.

"Happy birthday, Mr. Queen," I say evenly.

The smile that spreads across his face is all for her. I’m briefly forgotten, still straddling his lap, while they just grin at each other like idiot teenagers.

Finally Felicity says, “Are you going to kiss her or not?”

Oh, God, does he.

It’s not unusual for clients to focus on my pleasure. Most want to impress me, knowing I have a broad basis for comparison. They groom themselves meticulously, dress their sharpest, and often attempt to get me off as a point of pride, in which case there are always kegel muscles and a little theatrics.

Oliver Queen kisses me the way a wine connoisseur sips a hundred-year-old vintage. He even breathes me in the moment before he does it.

"I do expect you to share," Felicity informs him tartly.

"Oh, did you want to kiss her too?" He wants to see that. His lips part, his eyes dilate, and his hand on my back exerts faint, unconscious pressure in her direction. He wants to see that very badly. But he stays casual when he says, "I thought this was my birthday, not yours."

"We’re one flesh, remember? What’s mine is yours, what’s yours is mine, so metaphysically speaking - "

I kiss her over his shoulder.

Both of them make a noise that leaves me hopeful they will tip generously.

"Go on," he says, pushing us both toward the bed. We tumble down happily, and she pulls me on top of her. He turns the chair around to watch as we sink into long, luxurious, open-mouthed kisses. Her thighs part, and I press one of mine between them. She writhes and grinds and rolls her hips beneath me.

"Both of you," Oliver says, lips glistening where he’s just licked them, "take off the lingerie."

They are not my first couples call, and for the most part things go as expected. Like most of the powerful men who hire me, Oliver is used to his own way. Like many of the trophy wives who’ve ignored my existence, Felicity understands this, and she gives it to him judiciously.

It’s just our luck that his way appears to be ladies first. He wants us to touch each other, and we’re happy to. He wants us to taste each other, and we gladly follow those instructions as well. Felicity comes twice, I fake an orgasm and then surprise myself with a real one, and only then do we turn our full attention to the birthday boy.

He’s big enough to hurt a little bit when he first pushes into me, but my body accommodates him quickly. It must be more difficult for Felicity, because he eases into her slowly, with exquisite gentleness. Then he wants me, and he wants her, and he wants me while she sucks and nips at my breasts, and he wants her while I lick her clit.

There are only two surprises.

The first is Oliver’s body. He’s in the excellent shape of a committed athlete, heavily muscled for function rather than vanity. But when Felicity strips off her husband’s clothing, underneath lies the worst scarring I’ve ever seen in person: ropes of silver criss-crossing his chest and ribs; mottled, waxen patches of long-ago burns; a few puckered, messily healed puncture wounds. But some scars are pink, too fresh to have come from the island. I file that away. My services are valuable in large part for my discretion and my ironclad confidentiality, but I’m neither blind nor stupid.

His wife’s skin is nearly flawless, with the exception of a little silver knot on her shoulder. When I kiss it, she strokes my hair, and Oliver’s fingertips glide up my spine so lightly that a shiver chases them all the way to the nape of my neck.

The second surprise is that he does not treat me like a whore and her like a lady. If anything, he’s far more domineering with her. Issuing orders, spanking her when she doesn’t comply, pulling her hair, physically putting her where he wants her. I watch her carefully - I won’t be party to abuse - but she’s clearly enjoying herself.

I bring Felicity off once more, sucking and stroking her while Oliver takes her on her hands and knees. Then he pulls me up, kisses me firmly, and lays me back against the pillows. I understand I’ve been asked to give them a moment. Her one condition, when she first contacted me, was that her husband was not to come inside anyone but her.

I don’t mind being left out. I lounge against the headboard, and I watch as he turns her over, her legs haloed around his hips, and finishes that way. When he comes to rest on her shoulder, I slip away to the bathroom and return with two hand towels steaming from the hot water tap.

Oliver lies on his back in the middle of the bed, his wife tucked close to his side with her head on his chest. I crawl cross the bedspread to them, and they smile sleepily and murmur their thanks as I begin to wash away the sticky mess.

Oliver tugs me to his other side and fits me expertly against his warm, slow-breathing body. Felicity sits up briefly to pull the covers over us.

"It was a pleasure meeting you, Lena," he says, and she giggles.

"You as well, Mr. Queen."

"Oliver."

"Yes, Mr. Queen."

He laughs. “How long has Felicity been planning this?”

She smiles at me, which I take as permission to answer freely. “We first spoke three weeks ago. She was very anxious that you should enjoy your birthday. You’re a lucky man.”

He squeezes us both, and I can hear the yawn in his voice when he says, “I know it.” We’ve probably knocked him unconscious. I give it three minutes, max.

He drops off with Felicity’s hand and mine clasped on top of his chest. When his breathing finally evens out, I slide out of bed carefully.

"Thank you, Lena," she says, resting her chin on his chest. "There’s an envelope for you on the desk."

By the time I’ve dressed and slipped the envelope into my purse, she’s already asleep. In the hallway, I call the agency, and then I peek at my tip.

Fifty percent. She tipped me fifty percent. Oh, God, I hope they hire me for his half birthday, George Washington’s birthday, and the baby Jesus’ birthday too.

  
  
  


They become regulars.

I see them a few times a year, often for birthdays or anniversaries, but occasionally for stress relief. When I see Queen Consolidated in the news for any unpleasant reason, I know to expect a call.

In some ways, they remain strangers to me. I know nothing of their work, their interests, or their family. In other ways, I know them as intimately as a person can be known.

Happy, celebratory Oliver wears a smug grin and call the shots, but stressed, anxious Oliver wants nothing more than to lay back and surrender control to us. Happy Felicity giggles, and anxious Felicity babbles. Either can calm the other with a murmured name and a hand stroking through hair.

Sometimes there is a desperation to what we do. Nights with restraints and blindfolds and floggers, as though sensation alone can tether them to the world. Acts of perfect trust like candles lit against the darkness. On those nights, I wonder where the fresh scars come from. On those nights, I know I will never ask.

If you watched the Queens for fifteen minutes, you might come away believing that his was the stronger personality, or even that she took orders from him. Spend an hour, and you might think her the backseat driver, to whose judgment he deferred.

Spend three hours naked with both of them and you will see that they are total equals.

The middle three months of Felicity’s first pregnancy, they see me five times. I trade in my Camry for an Audi after that spree.

The first time I see them after baby Jonny is born, it is Oliver who calls me. In the penthouse suite at the Monteleone, Felicity is body conscious in a way I’ve never seen her before. And no, she doesn’t look the same. Larger breasts hang lower, her belly bears stretch marks and loose skin, and baby weight lingers on her hips and thighs. Oliver won’t hear of us paying him any attention whatsoever. This is Operation Worship Felicity’s Body, and I think we put our mouths on 90% of her surface area that night.

She’s pregnant again the following Valentine’s Day, which I only find out because she refuses a glass of wine. In May a car accident nearly kills them both, and I never hear another word about the pregnancy. I don’t see them for a year.

But they return eventually, and they remain my favorite regulars until I finally decide to leave the business.

My last call with them, they bring me a giant bouquet and the nicest bottle of wine I’ve ever touched. They both kiss me goodbye.

Forever after, whenever I glimpse them on the news, I smile.

  
  


The headline reads,  _Former Mayor Oliver Queen Dead at 81_. The obituary includes details of the wake.

I go in my black silk.

They don’t want to let me in at the door. I am no relation, and I’m not on the list of friends and acquaintances to whom notices have been sent. But Felicity is standing near enough to take an interest, and she comes to ask me my name.

"I’m Suzette Porter," I say, reaching for her hand, "but you knew me as Lena McNeill."

I see the old gleam in her eye - secrets always sparkled, when she kept them - and she takes my hand. “Please, come in.” It’s been forty years, but she hugs the same way - unreserved, with her whole body. “It’s wonderful to see you. Thank you for coming.”

"I thought the world of Mr. Queen. I’m so sorry for your loss."

She has other people to greet and attend to, and I don’t take up much of her time. Instead I pace the edge of the quiet, dignified parlor, and I take in the familiar faces of local celebrities and politicians. I see a few former clients, none of whom recognize or acknowledge me.

Near the casket and its spray of lilies, standing next to the infamous Jonathan Queen, is a young man with sandy hair. He turns his head toward me, and I gasp. It’s Oliver, exactly as I remember him, tall and handsome in his somber suit.

No. Of course not.

It’s Thomas Queen, the eldest grandson, and his eyes are brown rather than blue. Forgive an old woman her mistake.

In the corner of the room stands a beautifully designed collage of family photos - vacations, holidays, hobbies, little triumphs. The side of them of which I knew nothing. Only one catches my eye: Jonathan Queen and his bride slip into a limousine in a rain of flower petals, and a few feet away, Felicity’s eyes are misty. But she’s a second away from melting into a calm smile, because Oliver’s hand is petting her hair. Here, I recognize them.

I don’t look much closer, and I don’t linger. I’ve paid my respects. The rest is not meant for me.

On my way out, I lock eyes with Felicity across the room. She’s standing under the comforting arm of Thomas Queen, and I swallow past the sudden lump in my throat.

She smiles and blows me a kiss, in a gesture that anyone could take for the sentimentality of two old ladies.

I catch it, and I slip away.


End file.
